Dark Shadows
Inside the Secret World of Kazakhstan
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Dark Shadows
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Narrated by:
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Polly Lee
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By:
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Joanna Lillis
About this listen
Dark Shadows is a compelling portrait of Kazakhstan, a country that is little known in the West. Strategically located in the heart of Central Asia, sandwiched between Vladimir Putin's Russia, its former colonial ruler, and Xi Jinping's China, this vast oil-rich state is carving out its place in the world as it contends with its own complex past and present. Journalist Joanna Lillis paints a vibrant picture of this emerging nation through vivid reportage based on seventeen years of on-the-ground coverage, and travels across the length and breadth of this enigmatic country that lies along the ancient Silk Road and at the geopolitical and cultural crossroads where East meets West.
Featuring tales of murder and abduction, intrigue and betrayal, extortion and corruption, this book explores how a president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, transformed himself into a potentate and the economically struggling state he inherited at the fall of the USSR into a swaggering twenty-first century monocracy. This new edition features two additional chapters covering the aftermath of Nazarbayev's fall from power in 2019; the Chinese government's repressions against the Kazakhs of Xinjiang as part of its crackdown on Muslim minorities; and an afterword reflecting on the tumultuous events of January 2022 in Almaty.
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 26
During World War II, Géraldine Schwarz’s German grandparents were neither heroes nor villains; they were merely Mitlaüfer - those who followed the current. Decades later, while delving through filing cabinets in the basement of their apartment building in Mannheim, Schwarz discovers that in 1938, her grandfather took advantage of Nazi policies to buy a business from a Jewish family for a low price. Weaving together the threads of three generations of her family story with Europe’s process of post-war reckoning, Schwarz explores how millions were seduced by ideology.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Not what it purports to be
- By DPM on 10-10-20
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Black Wave
- Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry that Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East
- By: Kim Ghattas
- Narrated by: Kim Ghattas, Nan McNamara
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 452
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 387
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 386
With vivid story-telling, extensive historical research, and on-the-ground reporting, Ghattas dispels accepted truths about a region she calls home. She explores how Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran, once allies and twin pillars of US strategy in the region, became mortal enemies after 1979. She shows how they used and distorted religion in a competition that went well beyond geopolitics. Feeding intolerance, suppressing cultural expression, and encouraging sectarian violence from Egypt to Pakistan, the war for cultural supremacy led to many events.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Unveiling the darkness of the Middle East
- By Matty D on 02-18-20
By: Kim Ghattas
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Between Two Fires
- Truth, Ambition, and Compromise in Putin's Russia
- By: Joshua Yaffa
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 67
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 59
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 59
In this rich and novelistic tour of contemporary Russia, Joshua Yaffa introduces listeners to some of the country’s most remarkable figures - from politicians and entrepreneurs to artists and historians - who have built their careers and constructed their identities in the shadow of the Putin system. Torn between their own ambitions and the omnipresent demands of the state, each walks an individual path of compromise.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Stimulating
- By Amazon Customer on 03-16-20
By: Joshua Yaffa
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Strongmen
- Mussolini to the Present
- By: Ruth Ben-Ghiat
- Narrated by: Chloe Cannon
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 915
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 787
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 785
Ruth Ben-Ghiat is the expert on the "strongman" playbook employed by authoritarian demagogues from Mussolini to Putin. In Strongmen, she lays bare the blueprint these leaders have followed over the past 100 years, and empowers us to recognize, resist, and prevent their disastrous rule in the future.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascism expert talks fascism
- By sparky on 12-04-20
By: Ruth Ben-Ghiat
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Capitalism
- A Ghost Story
- By: Arundhati Roy
- Narrated by: Vaishali Sharma
- Length: 2 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 112
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 94
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 95
From the poisoned rivers, barren wells, and clear-cut forests, to the hundreds of thousands of farmers who have committed suicide to escape punishing debt, to the hundreds of millions of people who live on less than two dollars a day, there are ghosts nearly everywhere you look in India. India is a nation of 1.2 billion, but the country's 100 richest people own assets equivalent to one-fourth of India’s gross domestic product.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Courageous Reporting
- By Doug - Audible on 03-31-15
By: Arundhati Roy
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Maoism
- A Global History
- By: Julia Lovell
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 21 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 99
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 83
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Story4 out of 5 stars 82
For decades, the West has dismissed Maoism as an outdated historical and political phenomenon. Since the 1980s, China seems to have abandoned the utopian turmoil of Mao’s revolution in favor of authoritarian capitalism. But Mao and his ideas remain central to the People’s Republic and the legitimacy of its Communist government. With disagreements and conflicts between China and the West on the rise, the need to understand the political legacy of Mao is urgent and growing. And the power and appeal of Maoism have extended far beyond China.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Occasional Bias Revealed
- By Matthew Miller on 09-03-19
By: Julia Lovell
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Do Not Disturb
- The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad
- By: Michela Wrong
- Narrated by: Michela Wrong
- Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 141
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 121
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Story5 out of 5 stars 123
We think we know the story of Africa’s Great Lakes region. Following the Rwandan genocide, an idealistic group of young rebels overthrew the brutal regime in Kigali, ushering in an era of peace and stability that made Rwanda the donor darling of the West, winning comparisons with Switzerland and Singapore. But the truth was considerably more sinister.
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4 out of 5 stars
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What is true and what isn't?
- By Buretto on 11-30-21
By: Michela Wrong
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The Nine Lives of Pakistan
- Dispatches from a Precarious State
- By: Declan Walsh
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 103
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 87
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 87
Declan Walsh is one of the New York Times's most distinguished international correspondents. His electrifying portrait of Pakistan over a tumultuous decade captures the sweep of this strange, wondrous, and benighted country through the dramatic lives of nine fascinating individuals. On assignment as the country careened between crises, Walsh traveled from the raucous port of Karachi to the salons of Lahore, and from Baluchistan to the mountains of Waziristan. He met a diverse cast of extraordinary Pakistanis....
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Fascinating Look at a Troubled Country
- By Dipam on 07-11-21
By: Declan Walsh
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Hitler's First Hundred Days
- When Germans Embraced the Third Reich
- By: Peter Fritzsche
- Narrated by: Jim Seybert
- Length: 14 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 90
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 80
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Story4 out of 5 stars 78
Amid the ravages of economic depression, Germans in the early 1930s were pulled to political extremes both left and right. Then, in the spring of 1933, Germany turned itself inside out, from a deeply divided republic into a one-party dictatorship. In Hitler's First Hundred Days, award-winning historian Peter Fritzsche offers a probing account of the pivotal moments when the majority of Germans seemed, all at once, to join the Nazis to construct the Third Reich.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Whoa! This Is Too Tense To Be A Horror Novel!
- By Ted on 07-02-20
By: Peter Fritzsche
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Assad or We Burn the Country
- How One Family's Lust for Power Destroyed Syria
- By: Sam Dagher
- Narrated by: Gary Tiedemann
- Length: 19 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 264
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 220
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 215
In spring 2011, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad turned to his friend and army commander, Manaf Tlass, for advice about how to respond to Arab Spring-inspired protests. Tlass pushed for conciliation but Assad decided to crush the uprising - an act which would catapult the country into an eight-year long war, killing almost half a million and fueling terrorism and a global refugee crisis. Assad or We Burn the Country examines Syria's tragedy through the generational saga of the Assad and Tlass families, once deeply intertwined and now estranged....
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2 out of 5 stars
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Good until final chapter
- By Amazon Customer on 02-24-21
By: Sam Dagher
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The Hidden History of Burma
- Race, Capitalism, and the Crisis of Democracy in the 21st Century
- By: Thant Myint-U
- Narrated by: Assaf Cohen
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 101
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 80
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 79
Precariously positioned between China and India, Burma's population has suffered dictatorship, natural disaster, and the dark legacies of colonial rule. But when decades of military dictatorship finally ended and internationally beloved Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi emerged from long years of house arrest, hopes soared. As historian, former diplomat, and presidential advisor, Thant Myint-U saw the cracks forming. In this insider's diagnosis of a country at a breaking point, he dissects all of the elements that came together to challenge the incipient democracy.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Comprehensive Account on Burma’s recent problems
- By Anonymous User on 11-18-19
By: Thant Myint-U
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Three Tigers, One Mountain
- A Journey Through the Bitter History and Current Conflicts of China, Korea, and Japan
- By: Michael Booth
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 169
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 149
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 150
There is an ancient Chinese proverb that states, "Two tigers cannot share the same mountain." However, in East Asia, there are three tigers on that mountain: China, Japan, and Korea, and they have a long history of turmoil and tension with each other. In his latest entertaining and thought-provoking narrative travelogue, Michael Booth sets out to discover how deep, really, the enmity is between these three "tiger" nations and what prevents them from making peace.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Not much new here if you are already familiar
- By Neil Richert on 07-13-20
By: Michael Booth
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Balkan Ghosts
- A Journey Through History
- By: Robert D. Kaplan
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 12 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 296
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 252
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 253
From the assassination that triggered World War I to the ethnic warfare in Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia, the Balkans have been the crucible of the 20th century, the place where terrorism and genocide first became tools of policy. Chosen as one of the Best Books of the Year by the New York Times, and greeted with critical acclaim as "the most insightful and timely work on the Balkans to date" (The Boston Globe), Kaplan's prescient, enthralling, and often chilling political travelogue is already a modern classic.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Anti religious/anti catholic hit piece
- By Daniel Calvert on 05-04-21
By: Robert D. Kaplan
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The Craft
- How the Freemasons Made the Modern World
- By: John Dickie
- Narrated by: Simon Slater
- Length: 16 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 200
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 166
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 166
Founded in London in 1717 as a way of binding men in fellowship, Freemasonry proved so addictive that within two decades it had spread across the globe. Masonic influence became pervasive. Under George Washington, the Craft became a creed for the new American nation. Masonic networks held the British empire together. Under Napoleon, the Craft became a tool of authoritarianism and then a cover for revolutionary conspiracy. Both the Mormon Church and the Sicilian mafia owe their origins to Freemasonry.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The best book about Freemasonry out there.
- By Isaac Pea on 02-19-21
By: John Dickie
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The Bhutto Dynasty
- The Struggle for Power in Pakistan
- By: Owen Bennett-Jones
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 27
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 20
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Story5 out of 5 stars 20
A major new investigation into the Bhutto family, examining their influence in Pakistan from the colonial era to the present day.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent coverage of the dynasty
- By Junaid Qurashi on 04-26-21
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The Shining Path
- Love, Madness, and Revolution in the Andes
- By: Orin Starn, Miguel La Serna
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 59
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 51
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 51
On May 17, 1980, on the eve of Peru's presidential election, five masked men stormed a small town. They set election ballots ablaze and vanished, but not before planting a red hammer-and-sickle banner in the town square. The lone man arrested the next morning later swore allegiance to a group called Shining Path. Described by a US State Department cable as "cold-blooded and bestial", Shining Path orchestrated bombings, assassinations, and massacres across the cities, countryside, and jungles of Peru in a murderous campaign to seize power and impose a Communist government.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Understanding my wife
- By Eugene on 06-10-22
By: Orin Starn, and others
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The Long Hangover
- Putin’s New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past
- By: Shaun Walker
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 66
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 54
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
In The Long Hangover, Shaun Walker provides new insight into contemporary Russia and its search for a new identity, telling the story through the country's troubled relationship with its Soviet past. Walker not only explains Vladimir Putin's goals and the government's official manipulations of history, but also focuses on ordinary Russians and their motivations. He charts how Putin raised victory in World War II to the status of a national founding myth in the search for a unifying force to heal a divided country, and shows how dangerous the ramifications of this have been.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating and fair book on Putin's Russia
- By MyPublicName on 02-16-18
By: Shaun Walker